Anyone else think this is just wrong?
There will no doubt be some search traditionalists and Google lovers who will see this as sacrilege.
I see it as another shining example of how Google+ is coming to be synonymous with Google. Or is Google becoming synonymous with Google+. Increasingly, the lines are blurring.
Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan doesn’t like it:
“Personally, I find it intrusive. I don’t get why I want to go to the Google home page to share content on Google+. Rather, I’ll go to Google+, if I want to do that.“
I see his point. The Google+ share box doesn’t offend me per se, but I’m not sure how valuable it is in this context. How many people are going to post comments, photos, videos or links to Google+ from the home page? I didn’t think so.
Rather, I think Google+ users who rely on notifications will find this particularly useful. Don’t want to be bothered with the noisy Google+ page? Go to Google.com to see your update alerts.
For Google+, placement on the home page is the ultimate ad, besting the Chrome download or Android Nexus phone links. The share box is also part of the search results pages, which is probably more useful.
You like the results you see? Comment on them, and send a link or two via copy and paste.
Indeed, as Sullivan noted, the search box as Google currently implements it is dumb. From Google.com, Google Maps, Google News and other sites, you have to copy and paste URLs to share pages.
Not very helpful, so there’s some work to be done there.